Tactile Event Based Grasping Algorithm Using Memorized Triggers and Mechanoreceptive Sensors

Abstract

Humans perform grasping by breaking down the task into a series of action phases, where the transitions between the action phases are based on the comparison between the predicted tactile events and the actual tactile events. The dependency on tactile sensation in grasping allows humans to grasp objects without the need to locate the object precisely, which is a feature desirable in robot grasping to successfully grasp objects when there are uncertainties in localizing the target object. In this paper, we propose a method of implementing a tactile event based grasping algorithm using memorized predicted tactile events as state transition triggers, inspired by the human grasping. First, a simulated robotic manipulator mounted with pressure and vibration sensors on each finger, analogous to the different mechanoreceptors in humans, performed ideal grasping tasks, from which the tactile signals between consecutive states were extracted. The extracted tactile signals were processed and stored as predicted tactile events. Secondly, a grasping algorithm composed of eight discrete states, Reach, Re-Reach, Load, Lift, Hold, Avoid, Place, and Unload was built. The transition between consecutive states is triggered when the actual tactile events match the predicted tactile events, otherwise, triggering the corrective actions. Our algorithm was implemented on an actual robot, equipped with capacitive and piezoelectric transducers on the fingertips. Lastly, grasping experiments were conducted, where the target objects were deliberately misplaced from their expected positions, to investigate the robustness of the tactile event based grasping algorithm to object localization errors.